Atheists Split Over Message

Atheists are under attack these days for being too militant, for not just disbelieving in religious faith but for trying to eradicate it. And who's leveling these accusations? Other atheists, it turns out.

Among the millions of Americans who don't believe God exists, there's a split between people such as Greg Epstein, who holds the partially endowed post of humanist chaplain at Harvard University, and so-called "New Atheists."

Epstein and other humanists feel their movement is on the verge of explosive growth, but are concerned it will be dragged down by what they see as the militancy of New Atheism.

The most pre-eminent New Atheists include best-selling authors Richard Dawkins, who has called the God of the Old Testament "a psychotic delinquent," and Sam Harris, who foresees global catastrophe unless faith is renounced. They say religious belief is so harmful it must be defeated and replaced by science and reason.

Epstein calls them "atheist fundamentalists." He sees them as rigid in their dogma, and as intolerant as some of the faith leaders with whom atheists share the most obvious differences.

Next month, as Harvard celebrates the 30th anniversary of its humanist chaplaincy - part of the school's chaplaincy corps - Epstein will use the occasion to provide a counterpoint to the New Atheists.

"Humanism is not about erasing religion," he said. "It's an embracing philosophy."

In general, humanism rejects supernaturalism, while stressing principles such as dignity of the individual, equality and social justice. If there's no God to help humanity, it holds, people better do the work.

The celebration of a "New Humanism" will emphasize inclusion and diversity within the movement, and will include Pulitzer Prize-winning scientist E.O. Wilson, a humanist who has made well-chronicled efforts to team with evangelical Christians to fight global warming.

Part of the New Humanism, Wilson said, is "an invitation to a common search for morally based action in areas agreement can be reached in."

The tone of the New Atheists will only alienate important faith groups whose help is needed to solve the world's problems, Wilson said.

"I would suggest possibly that while there is use in the critiques by Dawkins and Harris, that they've overdone it," he said.

Harris, author of "Letter to a Christian Nation," sees the disagreement as overblown. He thinks there's room for multiple arguments in the debate between scientific rationalism and religious dogmatism. "I don't think everyone needs to take as uncompromising a stance as I have against faith," he said.

But, he added, an intellectual intolerance of people who strongly believe things on bad evidence is just "basic human sanity."

"We do not jail people for being stupid, but we do stop listening to them after a while," he said in e-mailed comments.

Harris also rejected the term "atheist fundamentalist," calling it "a silly play upon words." He noted that, when it comes to the ancient Greek gods, everyone is an atheist and no one is asked to justify that to pagans who want to believe in Zeus.

"Likewise with the God of Abraham," he said. "There is nothing 'fundamentalist' about finding the claims of religious demagogues implausible."

Some of the participants in Harvard's celebration of its humanist chaplaincy have no problem with the New Atheists' tone.

Harvard psychologist and author Steven Pinker said the forcefulness of their criticism is standard in scientific and political debate, and "far milder than what we accept in book and movie reviews."

"It's only the sense that religion deserves special respect - the exact taboo that Dawkins and Harris are arguing against - that people feel that those guys are being meanies when applying ordinary standards of evaluation to religion," Pinker said in e-mailed comments.

Dawkins did not respond to requests for comment. He has questioned whether teaching children they could go to hell is worse in the long term than sexually abusing them, and compares the evidence of God to evidence for unicorns, fairies and a "Flying Spaghetti Monster." His attempt to win converts is clear in "The God Delusion," when he writes of his hope that "religious readers who open it will be atheists when they put it down."

A 2006 Baylor University survey estimates about 15 million atheists in the United States.

Not all nonbelievers identify as humanists or atheists, with some calling themselves agnostics, freethinkers or skeptics. But humanists see the potential for unifying the groups under their banner, creating a large, powerful minority that can't be ignored or disdained by mainstream political and social thinkers.

Lori Lipman Brown, director of the Secular Coalition of America, sees a growing public acceptance of people who don't believe in God, pointing to California U.S. Rep. Pete Stark's statement this month that he doesn't believe in a supreme being. Stark is the first congressman to acknowledge being an atheist.

As more prominent people such as Stark publicly acknowledge they don't believe in God, "I think it will make it more palatable," Brown said.

But Epstein worries the attacks on religion by the New Atheists will keep converts away.

"The philosophy of the future is not going to be one that tries to erase its enemies," he said. "The future is going to be people coming together from what motivates them."

How do you define "evidence"?

Now that's a very intelligent question! It goes to the heart of epistemology.

Briefly, information can be transmitted either as symbols or as tokens. A symbol is any piece of transmitted information that is part of a statement that might be false. A token is any piece of information that must be true, but which might be misinterpreted. So all symbols are also tokens, but not all tokens are also symbols.

Examples: The word 'sentence' in the statment "This statement is false" is both a symbol and a token. The photons of light travelling from the computer screen you are reading onto the retinas of your eyes are tokens, but are not symbols.

Statements that are true by definition can only be made using symbols. Tokenized, non-symbolic information is always true, but never occurs in the form of a statement. Evidence is always transmitted using non-symbolic tokens, although it can be referenced using symbols.

The issue with statements that transmit information using symbols is whether or not the sender is lying--either intentionally or otherwise. The issue with empirical evidence transmitted as non-symbolic tokens is whether it is being interpreted correctly. Science is a methodolgy for making correct interpretations of tokenized information, and for improving its interpretive frameworks over time.

Finally, the interpretion of evidence transmitted as (non-symbolic) tokens requires the operation of an intelligent agent, who will necessarily use symbolic reasoning in order to intepret the evidence (which is why the intepretation can be wrong; were the interpretive process based solely on (non-symbolic) tokens, it could never be wrong.)

Bringing this back to the topic at hand, I consider all of reality to be the evidence that is relevant to the question of whether or not there is a deity.

The fundamental atom of reality is the distinction. In order for Nothing to exist, there must be a distinction between Something and Nothing. Once there is any distinction, then there is Something (the distinction.)

Definitions can be deceiving. Atheists that I grew up with were a variety of "not believing" or "unsure" of the existence of God, the latter of which you and I may identify as "agnostics". They were sincere and genuine.

When I say that they were "unsure" I mean that they were for the most part untroubled by their uncertainty, or at least as troubled as the person of faith is by their own path.

I think I understand these "atheists".

What we have today - parading as atheists and agnostics - are in reality "secular humanists". It's good to see that they are at least using the name "humanist, as they are in this article. Usually, they deliberately enjoy muddying up the waters by claiming to be atheists. I separate atheists from secular humanists based on their opposition to the concept of a deity. By the way, there are also secular humanists who put themselves forth as being Christians and Jews, as well. I have known a couple of these types - they use the pre-tense of being a person of faith to more strongly refute the position of a spiritual person.

I once got into it with a secular humanist pretending to be an agnostic when I referred to Buddhism as a world view or philosophy. She had a fit and told me that I could not classify a religion to suit my own purpose. She went on and on about it, while I pointed out that a true Buddhist would not be the least bit annoyed by how I referred to their philosophy,...or religion, nor would they expend an iota of energy refuting my position.

I get along fine with old school atheists. They challenge my faith and encourage me to look deeper. They make me slightly more conscious of the fact that I need to "walk the walk" as a reflection of my faith in Christ. Many of my Christian friends already know that I can not do this. We usually chuckle about this and urge and encourage each other on anyway.

Secular humanist, are easily identifiable by a profound bitterness. I have not met a single one that doesn't have a mean or spiteful streak in them. They are marked by their opposition to the concept of a God. I think this disposition stems from the fact that someone else has either laid claim or gotten credit for a position which they have chosen for themselves - "master of the Universe."

You're apparently missing the point. There is most certainly a subset of atheism where the believers define quite strictly what God is and then, because they don't see reality reflected in that definition, they become satisfied that God does not exist. You, for example, believe that because prayers of certain people are "not answered" that God does not exist.

History has shown about a billion and one times that bad things do in fact happen to seemingly good people. It is clear that if one accepts God then they must accept that bad things happen to good people. Take the case of Jessica Lunsford. If you believe the world consists solely of Jessica Lunsford and her barbaric killer, then it might be reasonable to believe that God does not exist. However, we should all be quite aware that the world is well beyond simply two people. God cannot answer every prayer. If God does indeed have a hand in human affairs, bad things may ultimately lead to great things.

Your naive and fatalistic view on the world is troubling. We do not have anarchy and chaos. Clearly, you again define God as a celestial puppetmaster, since "free will" to you only means that we are alone. I suspect that in a truly chaotic and random world, nothing we do or say means anything. Our thoughts and words are merely the result of millions of years of improbable evolution. Of course, in such a world, I find it hard to believe that kindness, mercy, and compassion have any place, yet they do exist in our world.

My first comment on this thread was how atheism was perfect for those with a God complex. You seem to be defining God left and right in a neverending attempt to disprove him - or, at the very least, comfort yourself that His existence is meaningless to you. This speaks to the self-refuting nature of atheism - to disprove God, one must in fact be God himself. This is why you so desperately search for contradictions in the Bible and ultimately end up creating for yourself a patchwork God that you can comfortably "disprove." The fact that there are things in this world that you don't know or understand is apparently terrifying. What it all comes down to is a fear that there is something beyond ourselves.

I believe that because no prayer to God has ever accomplished the impossible and because prayers are not answered in a systematic, predictable way even though the Bible says they are, and because there is no more evidence to prove God's existence than proof of Zeus or the Tooth Fairy, that believing in God's existence doesn't make the least bit of sense-- as most every adult acknowledges is the case for Zeus and the Tooth Fairy. And I don't know what purpose is served by using quotes between not answered. It's a fact that they weren't answered. No amputee, even the most saintly, has never been healed with a new limb even though healing of ailments is considered an established reward, in at least some cases, of prayer to God. There is not a single reasonable explanation that concerns "God's will" that would necessitate Jessica dying in the fashion she did-- it's just gratuitous. Can any believer provide any explanation for how it could possibly be part of God's will for a believer like Jessica to have her last days unfold the way that they did. God didn't even see fit for Jesus to have his last days spent as horribly as Jessica's were.

History has shown about a billion and one times that bad things do in fact happen to seemingly good people. It is clear that if one accepts God then they must accept that bad things happen to good people. Take the case of Jessica Lunsford. If you believe the world consists solely of Jessica Lunsford and her barbaric killer, then it might be reasonable to believe that God does not exist. However, we should all be quite aware that the world is well beyond simply two people. God cannot answer every prayer. If God does indeed have a hand in human affairs, bad things may ultimately lead to great things.

If one accepts God, then they must accept that there is no rhyme or reason to how frequently bad or good things happen and to whom they happen to. In some places in this world, throughout history and today, a state of barbarism is the world that many people find themselves in. We in the 21st century US are basically shielded from it. And, I am very glad to read that you acknowledge that if there is a God, he is not omnipotent and he may not even have any hand in human affairs either because of his own limitation or his inclination. Frankly, there's not a lot of difference between a God who creates people and leaves them totally alone and a parent who abandons their children at home for a week while they go on vacation. We don't tolerate the latter, justifiably. I don't see why some tolerate the former in God.

I don't know how free will is even defined by you because it varies. Some say it's the ability to freely choose to accept the divinity of God and all that's related to that. Some say it's the ability to freely choose what you do. We don't have free will to accept God's divinity because the consequence is an eternity of torture. It's coercion. No different than saying that Jessica had the free will to obey or not obey the orders given to her by John Couey.

And it doesn't make sense to say that as a part of a social contract, that people wouldn't encourage kindness, mercy, and compassion or discover what that means. Empathy isn't that hard of a concept to understand. We can all imagine ourselves in someone else's shoes and be lead to treat others in a kind and merciful and compassionate way-- because we may need the same consideration at some time. It's very beneficial for both parties. Symbiotic relationships are found all throughout nature-- not in just groups that adopt a belief in religion.

The only information I have about the nature of God is from believers and from what is considered an infallible record of his word, the Bible. I'm not defining him at all. He defined himself. I don't have a God complex. That's silly. It makes as much sense to say I have a Tooth Fairy complex. God has a God complex. He thinks he is omnipotent and omnibenevolent and omniscient, despite the evidence to the contrary. I don't seek to disprove God like I don't seek to disprove Santa Claus. Neither have any relevance to me one way or the other.

I'm not terrified by the unknowable or things I don't understand. Not at all. The only people who are terrified are those who cling to ideas that aren't supported at all by logic or reason because those ideas are comforting. I am not worried that there are ghosts or fairies or gods or whatever in some other plane of existence. It's a waste of my time.

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